OH, if my love offended me,
And we had words together,
To show her I would master be,
I’d whip her with a feather!
If then she, like a naughty girl,
Would tyranny declare it,
I’d give my pet a cross of pearl,
And make her always bear it.
If still she tried to sulk and sigh,
And threw away my posies,
I’d catch my darling on the sly,
And smother her with roses!
But should she clench her dimpled fists,
Or contradict her betters,
I’d manacle her tiny wrists
With dainty golden fetters.
And if she dared her lips to pout—
Like many pert young misses—
I’d wind my arm her waist about,
And punish her—with kisses!
J. Ashby-Sterry.

HER LETTER

I’M sitting alone by the fire,
Dressed just as I came from the dance,
In a robe even you would admire—
It cost a cool thousand in France;
I’m be-diamonded out of all reason,
My hair is done up in a queue:
In short, sir, “the belle of the season”
Is wasting an hour on you.
A dozen engagements I’ve broken;
I left in the midst of a set;
Likewise a proposal, half spoken,
That waits—on the stairs—for me yet.
They say he’ll be rich—when he grows up—
And then he adores me indeed.
And you, sir, are turning your nose up,
Three thousand miles off, as you read.
“And how do I like my position?”
“And what do I think of New York?”
“And now, in my higher ambition,
With whom do I waltz, flirt, or talk?”
“And isn’t it nice to have riches,
And diamonds and silks, and all that?”
“And isn’t it a change to the ditches
And tunnels of Poverty Flat?”
Well, yes—if you saw us out driving
Each day in the Park, four-in-hand—
If you saw poor dear mania contriving
To look supernaturally grand—
If you saw papa’s picture, as taken
By Brady, and tinted at that—
You’d never suspect he sold bacon
And flour at Poverty Flat.
And yet, just this moment when sitting
In the glare of the grand chandelier—
In the bustle and glitter befitting
The “finest soirée of the year”—
In the mists of a gaze de Chambéry,
And the hum of the smallest of talk—
Somehow, Joe, I thought of the “Ferry,”
And the dance that we had on “The Fork”;
Of Harrison’s barn, with its muster
Of flags festooned over the wall;
Of the candles that shed their soft lustre
And tallow on head-dress and shawl;
Of the steps that we took to one fiddle;
Of the dress of my queer vis-a-vis,
And how I once went down the middle
With the man that shot Sandy McGee;
Of the moon that was quietly sleeping
On the hill, when the time came to go;
Of the few baby peaks that were peeping
From under their bedclothes of snow;
Of that ride—that to me was the rarest;
Of—the something you said at the gate.
Ah, Joe, then I wasn’t an heiress
To “the best-paying lead in the State!”
Well, well, it’s all past; yet it’s funny
To think, as I stood in the glare
Of fashion and beauty and money,
That I should be thinking, right there,
Of some one who breasted high water,
And swam the North Fork, and all that,
Just to dance with old Folinsbee’s daughter,
The Lily of Poverty Flat.
But goodness! what nonsense I’m writing!
(Mama says my taste still is low),
Instead of my triumphs reciting,
I’m spooning on Joseph—heigh-ho!
And I’m to be “finished” by travel—
Whatever’s the meaning of that—
Oh! why did papa strike pay gravel
In drifting on Poverty Flat?
Good-night—here’s the end of my paper;
Good-night—if the longitude please—
For maybe, while wasting my taper,
Your sun’s climbing over the trees.
But know, if you haven’t got riches,
And are poor, dearest Joe, and all that,
That my heart’s somewhere there in the ditches,
And you’ve struck it—on Poverty Flat.
Francis Bret Harte.

AVICE

THOUGH the voice of modern schools
Has demurred,
By the dreamy Asian creed
’Tis averred,
That the souls of men, released
From their bodies when deceased,
Sometimes enter in a beast,—
Or a bird.
I have watched you long, Avice,—
Watched you so,
I have found your secret out;
And I know
That the restless ribboned things,
Where your slope of shoulder springs,
Are but undeveloped wings,
That will grow.
When you enter in a room,
It is stirred
With the wayward, flashing flight
Of a bird;
And you speak—and bring with your
Leaf and sun-ray, bud and blue,
And the wind-breath and the dew,
At a word.
When you called to me my name,
Then again
When I heard your single cry
In the lane,
All the sound was as the “sweet”
Which the birds to birds repeat
In their thank-song to the heat
After rain.
When you sang the Schwalbenlied,—
’Twas absurd,—
But it seemed no human note
That I heard;
For your strain had all the trills,
All the little shakes and stills,
Of the over-song that rills
From a bird.
You have just their eager, quick
Airs de tête,
All their flush and fever-heat
When elate;
Every bird-like nod and beck,
And a bird’s own curve of neck
When she gives a little peck
To her mate.
When you left me, only now,
In that furred,
Puffed, and feathered Polish dress,
I was spurred
Just to catch you, O my sweet,
By the bodice trim and neat,—
Just to feel your heart-a-beat,
Like a bird.
Yet alas! Love’s light you deign
But to wear
As the dew upon your plumes,
And you care
Not a whit for rest or hush;
But the leaves, the lyric gush,
And the wing-power, and the rush
Of the air.
So I dare not woo you, sweet,
For a day,
Lest I lose you in a flash,
As I may;
Did I tell you tender things,
You would shake your sudden wings;—
You would start from him who sings,
And away.
Austin Dobson.

A SONG OF THE FOUR SEASONS

WHEN Spring comes laughing
By vale and hill,
By wind-flower walking
And daffodil,—
Sing stars of morning,
Sing morning skies,
Sing blue of Speedwell,—
And my Love’s eyes.
When comes the Summer,
Full-leaved and strong,
And gay birds gossip
The orchard long,—
Sing hid, sweet honey
That no bee sips;
Sing red, red roses,—
And my love’s lips.
When Autumn scatters
The leaves again,
And piled sheaves bury
The broad-wheeled wain,—
Sing flutes of harvest
Where men rejoice;
Sing rounds of reapers,—
And my Love’s voice.
But when comes winter
With hail and storm,
And red fire roaring
And ingle warm,—
Sing first sad going
Of friends that part;
Then sing glad meeting,—
And my Love’s heart.
Austin Dobson.

IN TOWN

“The blue fly sung in the pane.”—Tennyson.

TOILING in Town now is “horrid”
(There is that woman again!)—
June in the zenith is torrid,
Thought gets dry in the brain.
There is that woman again:
“Strawberries! fourpence a pottle!”
Thought gets dry in the brain;
Ink gets dry in the bottle.
“Strawberries! fourpence a pottle!”
Oh for the green of a lane!—
Ink gets dry in the bottle;
“Buzz” goes a fly in the pane!
Oh for the green of a lane,
Where one might lie and be lazy!
“Buzz” goes a fly in the pane;
Bluebottles drive me crazy!
Where one might lie and be lazy,
Careless of Town and all in it!—
Bluebottles drive me crazy:
I shall go mad in a minute!
Careless of Town and all in it,
With some one to soothe and to still you,
I shall go mad in a minute,
Bluebottle, then I shall kill you!
With some one to soothe and to still you,
As only one’s feminine kin do,—
Bluebottle, then I shall kill you:
There now! I’ve broken the window!
As only one’s feminine kin do,—
Some muslin-clad Mabel or May!—
There now! I’ve broken the window!
Bluebottle’s off and away!
Some muslin-clad Mabel or May,
To dash one with eau de Cologne;—
Bluebottle’s off and away,
And why should I stay here alone?
To dash one with eau de Cologne,
All over one’s eminent forehead;
And why should I stay here alone?
Toiling in Town now is “horrid.”
Austin Dobson.

WHEN I SAW YOU LAST, ROSE

WHEN I saw you last, Rose,
You were only so high;—
How fast the time goes!
Like a bud ere it blows,
You just peeped at the sky,
When I saw you last, Rose!
Now your petals unclose,
Now your May-time is nigh;—
How fast the time goes!
And a life—how it grows!
You were scarcely so shy,
When I saw you last, Rose!
In your bosom it shows
There’s a guest on the sly;
How fast the time goes!
Is it Cupid? Who knows!
Yet you used not to sigh,
When I saw you last, Rose;—
How fast the time goes!
Austin Dobson.

TO “LYDIA LANGUISH”

“Il me faut des emotions.”—Blanche Amory

YOU ask me, Lydia, “whether I,
If you refuse my suit, shall die,”
(Now pray don’t let this hurt you!)
Although the time be out of joint,
I should not think a bodkin’s point
The sole resource of virtue;
Nor shall I, though your mood endure,
Attempt a final Water-cure
Except against my wishes;
For I respectfully decline
To dignify the Serpentine,
And make hors-d’œuvres for fishes;
But if you ask me whether I
Composedly can go,
Without a look, without a sigh,
Why, then I answer—No.
“You are assured,” you sadly say
(If in this most considerate way
To treat my suit your will is),
That I shall “quickly find as fair
Some new Neæra’s tangled hair—
Some easier Amaryllis.”
I cannot promise to be cold
If smiles are kind as yours of old
On lips of later beauties;
Nor can I, if I would, forget
The homage that is Nature’s debt,
While man has social duties;
But if you ask shall I prefer
To you I honour so,
A somewhat visionary Her,
I answer truly—No.
You fear, you frankly add, “to find
In me too late the altered mind
That altering Time estranges.”
To this I make response that we
(As physiologists agree)
Must have septennial changes;
This is a thing beyond control,
And it were best upon the whole
To try and find out whether
We could not, by some means, arrange
This not-to-be-avoided change
So as to change together:
But, had you asked me to allow
That you could ever grow
Less amiable than you are now,—
Emphatically—No.
But—to be serious—if you care
To know how I shall really bear
This much-discussed rejection,
I answer you. As feeling men
Behave, in best romances, when
You outrage their affection;—
With that gesticulatory woe,
By which, as melodramas show,
Despair is indicated;
Enforced by all the liquid grief
Which hugest pocket-handkerchief
Has ever simulated;
And when, arrived so far, you say
In tragic accents “Go,”
Then, Lydia, then . . . I still shall stay,
And firmly answer—No.
Austin Dobson.

THE OLD SEDAN CHAIR

IT stands in the stable-yard, under the eaves,
Propped up by a broom-stick and covered with leaves:
It once was the pride of the gay and the fair,
But now ’tis a ruin,—that old Sedan chair!
It is battered and tattered,—it little avails
That once it was lacquered, and glistened with nails;
For its leather is cracked into lozenge and square,
Like a canvas by Wilkie,—that old Sedan chair!
See,—here came the bearing-straps; here were the holes
For the poles of the bearers—when once there were poles;
It was cushioned with silk, it was wadded with hair,
As the birds have discovered,—that old Sedan chair!
“Where’s Troy?” says the poet! Look,—under the seat,
Is a nest with four eggs,—’tis the favored retreat
Of the Muscovy hen, who has hatched, I dare swear,
Quite an army of chicks in that old Sedan chair!
And yet—can’t you fancy a face in the frame
Of the window,—some high-headed damsel or dame,
Be-patched and be-powdered, just set by the stair,
While they raise up the lid of that old Sedan chair?
Can’t you fancy Sir Plume, as beside her he stands,
With his ruffles a-droop on his delicate hands,
With his cinnamon coat, with his laced solitaire,
As he lifts her out light from that old Sedan chair?
Then it swings away slowly. Ah, many a league
It has trotted ’twixt sturdy-legged Terence and Teague;
Stout fellows!—but prone, on a question of fare,
To brandish the poles of that old Sedan chair!
It has waited by portals where Garrick has played;
It has waited by Heidegger’s “Grand Masquerade”;
For my Lady Codille, for my Lady Bellair,
It has waited—and waited, that old Sedan chair!
Oh, the scandals it knows! Oh, the tales it could tell
Of Drum and Ridotto, of Rake and of Belle,—
Of Cock-fight and Levee, and (scarcely more rare!)
Of Fête-days at Tyburn, that old Sedan chair!
“Heu! quantum mutata,” I say as I go.
It deserves better fate than a stable-yard, though!
We must furbish it up, and dispatch it—“With care,”—
To a Fine-Art Museum—that old Sedan chair!
Austin Dobson.

“LE ROMAN DE LA ROSE”

POOR Rose! I lift you from the street,—
Far better I should own you
Than you should lie for random feet
Where careless hands have thrown you.
Poor pinky petals, crushed and torn!
Did heartless Mayfair use you,
Then cast you forth to lie forlorn,
For chariot-wheels to bruise you?
I saw you last in Edith’s hair,
Rose, you would scarce discover
That I she passed upon the stair
Was Edith’s favoured lover.
A month—“a little month”—ago—
O theme for moral writer!—
’Twixt you and me, my Rose, you know,
She might have been politer;
But let that pass. She gave you then—
Behind the oleander—
To one, perhaps, of all the men—
Who best could understand her,—
Cyril, that, duly flattered, took,
As only Cyril’s able,
With just the same Arcadian look
He used, last night, for Mabel;
Then, having waltzed till every star
Had paled away in morning,
Lit up his cynical cigar,
And tossed you downward, scorning.
Kismet, my Rose! Revenge is sweet,—
She made my heart strings quiver;
And yet—You sha’n’t lie in the street;
I’ll drop you in the river.
Austin Dobson.

NINETY-NINE IN THE SHADE

O  FOR a lodge in a garden of cucumbers!
O for an iceberg or two at control!
O for a vale which at mid-day the dew cumbers!
O for a pleasure-trip up to the pole!
O for a little one-story thermometer,
With nothing but zeroes all ranged in a row!
O for a big double-barreled hygrometer,
To measure this moisture that rolls from my brow!
O that this cold world were twenty times colder!
(That’s irony red-hot, it seemeth to me);
O for a turn of its dreaded cold shoulder!
O what a comfort an ague would be!
O for a grotto frost-lined and rill-riven,
Scooped in the rock under cataract vast!
O for a winter of discontent even!
O for wet blankets judiciously cast!
O for a soda-fount spouting up boldly
From every hot lamp-post against the hot sky!
O for proud maiden to look on me coldly,
Freezing my soul with a glance of her eye!
Then O for a draught from a cup of cold pizen,
And O for a resting-place in the cold grave!
With a bath in the Styx where the thick shadow lies on
And deepens the chill of its dark-running wave.
Rossiter Johnson.

BRIGHTON PIER

WHICH is the merriest place to love,
Whether it be for a day or year;
Where can we slip, like a cast-off glove,
The care that hovers our world above?
Come and be taught upon Brighton Pier!
Wandering waves on the shingle dash,
The sky’s too blue for a thoughtless tear;
Danger is nothing but pessimist trash,
And the morning’s made for a healthy splash:
Come for a header from Brighton Pier!
Filled with life, see the children race,
Motherly hearts they quake with fear,
Meeting the breezes face to face!
Whether we’re steady or “go the pace,”
Let us be young upon Brighton Pier!
Here she comes with her love-lit eyes,
Hearts will throb when a darling’s near;
Would it be well to avoid her—wise?
Every fool in the wide world tries,
But love must win upon Brighton Pier!
Lazily lost in a dream we sit—
Maidens’ eyes are a waveless mere—
There’s many a vow when seagulls flit,
And many a sigh when lamps are lit,
And many a kiss upon Brighton Pier.
Dear old friends of the days long fled,
Why did you vanish and leave me here?
Girls are marrying, boys are wed,
Youth is living, but I seem dead,
Kicking my heels upon Brighton Pier!
Clement Scott.

A CONTRADICTION

“Varium et mutabile semper Fœmina!”—Virgil

THEY say she’s like an April day,
All sun and shower, grave and gay,
Just half in love, and half in play,
Like other misses.
Go to! They tell a pack of lies;
For I have heard her heart-drawn sighs,
And I have seen her inmost eyes,
And felt her kisses!
They think her laugh is over-bold,
And hint her smiles are bought for gold;
Dull heretics have thought her cold,
As is the fashion.
Ah me! when we together stole
Across the weald to leafy Knole,
’Twas there she showed to me her soul
And all her passion!
They vow her life is tossed about
From ball to picnic, play to rout;
A careless butterfly, no doubt,
That scandal crushes.
What could we answer, if ’twere said
That Time and Fate two lovers led
To lily-streams at Maidenhead,
Among the rushes?
Her reputation shivered most
Last night at supper, when our host
Made her of careless lips the toast
And reigning goddess.
But I, who know my love, dare say
She thought of home, and tried to pray
Before her handmaid slipped away
Her satin bodice.
Your silly worldings all forget
Her depth of hidden life, and bet
They’ve never met her equal yet
In fact or fiction.
But I, who love in secret, sit
Unweaving webs that Fate has knit
To bind me to so exquisite
A contradiction.
Clement Scott.

RONDEL

KISS me, sweetheart; the Spring is here
And Love is Lord of you and me.
The blue-bells beckon each passing bee;
The wild wood laughs to the flowered year:
There is no bird in brake or brere,
But to his little mate sings he,
“Kiss me, sweetheart; the Spring is here,
And Love is Lord of you and me!”
The blue sky laughs out sweet and clear,
The missel-thrush upon the tree
Pipes for sheer gladness loud and free;
And I go singing to my dear,
“Kiss me, sweetheart; the Spring is here,
And Love is Lord of you and me.”
John Payne.

WHITE, PILLARED NECK

I

WHITE, pillared neck; a brow to make men quake;
A woman’s perfect form;
Like some cool marble, should that wake,
Breathe, and be warm.

II

A shape, a mind, a heart
Of womanhood the whole;
Her breath, her smile, her touch, her art,
All—save her soul.
Richard Watson Gilder.

JANET

I

I  REMEMBER
That November
When the new November child
On this old world woke and smiled.

II

Here’s a woman,
Sweet and human,
And they call her Janet, now,—
I can’t make it out, I vow

III

It only seems
One night of dreams;
Years they say; how do they plan it?
What’s become of Little Janet?

IV

Never mind;
She’s good; she’s kind;
Age can never bend or win her;
There’s a heart of youth within her.
Richard Watson Gilder.

FOR A FAN

EACH of us answers to a call;
Master or mistress have we all.
I belong to lovely Anne;
Dost thou wish thou wert a fan?
Thus to be treasured, thus to be prest,
Pleasuring thus, and thus caressed?
Richard Watson Gilder.

BALLADE OF SUMMER

WHEN strawberry pottles are common and cheap,
Ere elms be black, or limes be sere,
When midnight dances are murdering sleep,
Then comes in the sweet o’ the year
And far from Fleet Street, far from here,
The Summer is Queen in the length of the land,
And moonlit nights they are soft and clear,
When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!
When clamour that doves in the lindens keep
Mingles with musical plash of the weir,
Where drowned green tresses of crowsfeet creep,
Then comes in the sweet o’ the year!
And better a crust and a beaker of beer,
With rose hung hedges on either hand,
Than a palace in town and a prince’s cheer,
When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!
When big trout late in the twilight leap,
When cuckoo clamoureth far and near,
When glittering scythes in the hayfield reap,
Then comes in the sweet o’ the year!
And it’s oh to sail, with the wind to steer,
While kine knee-deep in the water stand,
On a highland loch, on a Lowland mere,
When fans for a penny are sold in the Strand!

ENVOY